Globalization is a Sign of the End Times

Obama's Plan to Rejoin the World Community

by Phyllis Schlafly December 26, 2008

When Candidate Barack Obama declared himself a "citizen of the world" before thousands of cheering German socialists, and later pledged to "rejoin the World Community," those weren't just his usual platitudes about "change." Those words sounded the trumpet for his specific and far-reaching globalist agenda.
Obama plans to use his presidential power to get the Democratic-majority Senate to ratify a series of treaties that would take us a long way toward global rule over our money, our laws, our military, our courts, our customs, our trade, and even our use of energy. Here are the treaties he says he wants.

The UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), which Reagan rejected in 1982, is high on Obama's list. LOST has already created the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Jamaica and given it total regulatory jurisdiction over all the world's oceans and all the riches on the ocean floor.

Corrupt foreign dictators dominate LOST's global bureaucracy, and the U.S. would have the same vote as Cuba. Likewise for LOST's International Tribunal in Hamburg, Germany, which has the power to decide all disputes.

Even worse, LOST gives the ISA the power to levy international taxes. The real purpose of the taxing power is to compel the United States to spend billions of private-enterprise dollars to mine the ocean floor and then let ISA bureaucrats transfer our wealth to socialist, anti-American nations.

Next on Obama's list is the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was signed by Bill Clinton but rejected by the Senate in 1999. It would prohibit all nuclear explosive testing and thereby allow our nuclear arsenal to deteriorate until the American people are defenseless against rogue regimes such as Iran and North Korea.

A new Global Warming Treaty is starting to be written at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poland in order to replace the Kyoto Agreement which George W. Bush and our Senate refused to ratify. The new treaty would force dramatic reductions in our use of energy, i.e., our standard of living, and impose the "strong international norms" that Obama seeks.

Obama is toadying to his feminist friends by pushing ratification of the UN Treaty on Women, known as CEDAW. It was signed by Jimmy Carter in 1980 and persistently promoted by Hillary Clinton, but the Senate has so far had the good judgment to refuse to ratify it.

This treaty would require us "to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women," to follow UN dictates about "family education," to revise our textbooks to conform to feminist ideology in order to ensure "the elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women," and to set up a federal "network of child-care facilities."

Article 16 would require us to allow women "to decide number and spacing of their children." Everyone recognizes this as feminist jargon for a UN obligation to allow abortion on demand.

Like all UN treaties, the UN Treaty on Women creates a monitoring commission of so-called "experts" to ensure compliance. The monitors of the Treaty on Women have already singled out Mother's Day as a stereotype that must be eliminated.

Another UN Treaty on the list is the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child, which was signed in 1995 by Bill Clinton but wisely never ratified by our Senate. This is a pet project of the people who believe that the "village" (i.e., the government or UN "experts") should raise children rather than their parents.

This treaty would give children rights against their parents and society to express their own views "freely in all matters," to receive information of all kinds through "media of the child's choice," to use their "own language," and to have the right to "rest and leisure." This treaty even orders our schools to teach respect for "the Charter of the United Nations."

These Obama-endorsed treaties, every one of which would be a dramatic encroachment on U.S. sovereignty, would be supplemented by trade agreements negotiated by Obama's Trade Representative, Ron Kirk. He is an enthusiastic supporter of the "global economic community" (which means open borders for "free" trade), of NAFTA, and even of the NAFTA SuperHighway, which he calls the "true river of trade between our communities."

Kirk's work to lock us into the global economy will be bolstered by Obama's Secretary of Commerce, Bill Richardson, another aggressive promoter of "free" trade.

Every UN treaty would interfere with self-government over some aspect of our lives and would transfer significant power to foreign bureaucrats, many of whom hate and envy America. Obama's UN treaties are the enemy of U.S. political and social independence, and Kirk's global economic community is the enemy of good middle-class American jobs.

What Kind of Journey Will You Take for Christmas?

I. A Sentimental Journey – Totally Secular in Nature

You can have a "White Christmas", with snow, fire in the fireplace, nostalgia, sleigh bells in the snow and a commercial Santa

Traditional symbols of tree, gifts, ornaments, lights, bell ringers, mistletoe with mostly no meaning

What about "I’ll be home for Christmas" – if only in my dreams; home and family, maybe good desire of soldiers

Many expectations with gifts for everyone, meals for the disadvantaged; happiness and joy all around, but is it the joy of Gal. 5:22? Probably not!

Wishes for peace on earth, good will to men, happy holidays – very sentimental, right out of a Christmas story or poem, but almost always about just feeling good

Results: outpouring of generosity and good will for some, elaborate celebrations and spectacles; loneliness and feelings galore of rejection for others. This nostalgia leaves some families with great "togetherness", but others with loneliness as they view others from their positions of isolation

II. You Can Also Have a Religious Fictional Journey

Consider all the creches with public displays of the nativity scenes? In Washington State you can also find an atheist sign next to the nativity display, deriding all who believe in God
     No scriptural record for all this stuff: gold saucers of halo, nimbus, aureole around their heads; three kings named Melchior, Caspar, and Belthizar; three kings arriving the same night as the shepherds; riding in on camel back; one king is black, one is young, and another is old; an open stable. I wonder how camel meat tastes?
    What about coming at the winter solstice? Then the animals are all around at peace at the stable – what a romantic picture! Who doesn’t love the little drummer boy and the little crippled boy who gives his crutch and his leg is healed. Now that is a great story
    Just one problem with all this…there is simply no such record in the Scriptures.

What do we really know biblically of the "wise" men? With transliteration, they were magi, or ‘magoi’. Magoi is plural, but we still do NOT know how many of these men came to Israel from the East. (Magoi is an undefined term, but you could do a little research in the book of Daniel.) My pastor’s best guess is that there might have been twenty or so of them!
    What we do know is that they came from the east; they were following a supernatural star looking for the one born king; they stopped to question Herod (who asked the scribes where He was to be born – and Herod never did see any "star"!); but the star re-appeared and stood over the place where the child was; they found Jesus as a child, not a baby, with His mother and worshipped Him
    They found Him in a house with His mother-no mention of Joseph; they gave Him gifts; they were warned in a dream not to talk to Herod again; and they went back to their origins without telling Herod a thing
    In Babylon and Persia there was no king without the blessing of the wise men. They were astrologers, magicians, philosophers, teachers, advisers and elders of the nation. Daniel became one of them. Chaldean history says that they were instructors of kings. If they came from far away, such as Persia, they probably came with an "army" to protect them from the Romans, although the Romans had a lot of problems outside of Israel at that time. We read that Herod was so "troubled" that he had sent his army to help the Romans elsewhere. As a king he was an underling under Caesar. Here comes a bunch of king-makers with a large guard and Herod was home alone! He couldn’t and didn’t see any star. What to do? He asked the Jewish scribes, and later decimated the landscape of children of the right age to "remove" the kingly threat to himself. I think Isaiah 59 would be helpful here.

What is the acceptable boundary for fictionalizing? Where scripture is concerned, we have the opportunity to be discerning without liberty of fictionalizing, and to defend the faith with the TRUTH in gentleness and reverence. Let’s tack on 1 Pet. 3:15 here.

Love 'Em or Hate 'Em?

Frank and Ernest have a point, don't they? Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. If you don't feel too good about any party, how can you give thanks for all things? Nevertheless, this is the will of God. For from Him and through Him and to Him are ALL things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

How Long Does Evolution Take?

America-on the Spiraling Downward Path, Part 10

Political Correctness is Killing America, by Tony Kalna Jr.

Political correctness is the Achilles heel of the USA. It is a weakness that we created ourselves, and one that is taking our nation on a one-way trip to self-destruction. It is quickly dissolving America’s moral fiber, taking away our sovereignty, and turning our country into a melting pot of disaster. Political correctness is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, ready to devour the very nation that created this bizarre concept. It is high time Americans stop tolerating the concept of tolerance and start standing up for what we believe in and what this country was founded on – Christian values.
Somewhere along the line, it has become wrong to call the national holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, Christmas. Instead of Christmas, it is called "Winter Holiday". It is illegal to display a nativity scene depicting the birth of Christ on most public properties and on some privately owned land in America. In some instances, it has become illegal to display the Ten Commandments in courtrooms and on some government properties. The words, 'In God We Trust', have been taken off the front of our one dollar coin and placed inconspicuously on the edge of the coin.
When I was growing up, we said the Pledge of Allegiance each morning before class began at school. Many schools today no longer allow this because the Pledge includes the words "one nation, under God."
Prayer is often banned from schools and sporting events because groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) say it’s imposing on the rights of those who don’t believe in God.
These are just a few of the many examples of the politically correct movement that has somehow overtaken our country. It is a corrosive concept that is eating away at our nation’s heart and soul….Why is it wrong to bring God into anything in America any more? …It is wrong that we have allowed homosexuality to sweep across our nation. We don’t have to embrace this lifestyle, it is wrong. Consider that in a public school in Denver, Colorado, a boy who didn’t know his own sexual identity came back to school the next year as a girl. The school decided to accommodate the other students with counselors to help them understand and cope with this alternative lifestyle! …Political correctness is brainwashing our kids… . We’ve got public schools handing out condoms instead of teaching abstinence. There are folks in our country wanting to legalize the use of drugs, yet we can’t drill our oil on our own land or off of our coasts because it is politically incorrect. The catchword today is "green". …
In today’s America, we can’t say certain words because it might hurt someone’s feelings. This is ridiculous. What happened to freedom of speech? …Freedom of speech has been replaced with political correctness. People are losing jobs over this nonsense!
We’re not supposed to use racial profiling as an aid in helping track down terrorists. …We have politicians in place in government now who want to rewrite the Constitution to fit their socialistic ideals. We have judges making decisions not based on law or the Constitution, but on their own warped sense of morality—political correctness. The United States of America is fast becoming the ‘Divided States of America’ as there is a constant strain on the moral fiber that has held this great nation together for over 200 years. Look at the news on TV or in the newspapers and you will see countless stories about murders, rapes, child molestation, robberies, abductions, and suicides on a daily basis. The TV shows that follow the news are full of gay or lesbian relationships, violence, sexual promiscuity and more immorality. Why? In my opinion it is because we are keeping God out of our country all in the name of political correctness. We have a minority of people and special interest groups like the ACLU trying to eliminate God from the United States.
Ronald Reagan once said in a speech, "Once we are no longer a nation under God, we will surely be a nation gone under." It is high time Americans band together and stand proud and tall for the Christian values that this great nation was built upon. It’s time to do away with political correctness and start doing what’s right for our country. It’s time to bring God back into the United States and take back America!

…Copied from the Saint Louis MetroVoice, St. Louis’ Christian News and Events Publication, Vol. 18, No. 11

Outline of "The Believer's Future"

The Believer’s Future:

I. "We Shall All be Changed…"
...Those who sleep in Jesus…resurrected
...Those who are alive and remain…’changed in the twinkling of an eye’
..."Meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with Him…"

II. The Judgment Seat of Christ
...All believers must pass through the Judgment (Bema) Seat of Christ
...Judged, not for sin, but for how we conducted our lives with Christ, with the Holy Spirit’s indwelling and power
......To seek the lost
......To glorify the king of kings
......To manifest the kingdom
......To act as ambassadors of peace and reconciliation
......To live quiet, peaceable lives
.........Full of love
.........Full of compassion
.........Doing unto others as we would have them do to us
.........Rejecting envy, coveting, power, worldliness
...A judgment for reward; disobedience results in loss
...Reward is reflected back to Christ
...Crowned and prepared as a bride
...Wedding feast of the Lamb
...Return to earth with Christ

III. Earth Judgments
...Campaign of Armageddon
...Capture of the beast and Stan; binding of Satan
...Sheep and goats judgment
...........Sheep-those who have survived the Tribulation alive as believers in the Messiah
...........Goats-those who have survived the Tribulation alive as followers of the Anti-Christ

IV. The Millennial Kingdom Reign with Christ… Rev 21 and 22

America-on the Spiraling Downward Path, Part 9

It's beginning to look a lot like -- a war over Christmas.


The Freedom from Religion Foundation has a placard up in the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington.

Alongside a Nativity scene at the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, a sign put up by an atheist organization celebrates the winter solstice. But it's the rest of the sign that has some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges for attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth.

"Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds," the sign says in part.

Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher who now heads up the atheist and agnostic Freedom From Religion Foundation, said it was important for atheists to see their viewpoints validated alongside everyone else's.

Barker said the display is especially important given that 25 percent of Washington state residents are unaffiliated with religion or do not believe in God. (A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 23 percent of Washingtonians said they were unaffiliated with a religion and 7 percent said they didn't believe in God.)

"It's not that we are trying to coerce anyone; in a way our sign is a signal of protest," Barker said. "If there can be a Nativity scene saying that we are all going to hell if we don't bow down to Jesus, we should be at the table to share our views."

He said if anything, it's the Nativity scene that is the intrusion.

"Most people think December is for Christians and view our signs as an intrusion, when actually it's the other way around," he said. "People have been celebrating the winter solstice long before Christmas. We see Christianity as the intruder, trying to steal the holiday from all of us humans." ..........By Mallory Simon CNN

The Miracle of the New Birth

Transformed and Conformed: New Bodies

The Christian Believer is a citizen of heaven, rather than just the earth. We are declared to be ambassadors to earth! Our manual is the Word of God, which declares us to be foolish and "dupes" until converted to Christ with the indwelling Holy Spirit.
I. Living in "Tent City"

A. All men born in Adam die ...1 Cor 15:22; Heb 9:27…but made alive, only in Christ

B. All men born in Adam inhabit a body that is mortal or temporary…It is referred to in the Scriptures as a "tabernacle" or "tent"…2 Cor 5:1-10

C. But even while we are in this "tent" the promise of something better is alive in us!

Waiting for a permanent building from God, eternal in heaven
We are groaning in this current body cr. Rom 8:18-25
We desire for the mortal to be swallowed up with the immortal; our spirit leaving this tent is only one half of what we long for; we long to be clothed again with the new body (building)
It is the Spirit of God in us that is creating this yearning!
"We" are the spirit, the living, that is inside this tent. As long as "we" are at home in this tent "we" are absent from the Lord.
Death is actually the departure of the living spirit from the tent immediately into the presence of the Lord
To know this we walk by faith, not by sight
So our aim, our goal is to be pleasing to the Lord whether absent from or present with Him
We will all appear before Him at the Judgment (Bema) Seat to receive for the things done while we lived in this tent.

D. From other passages to the Corinthians we know this body is called the temple of the Holy Spirit …1 Cor 6:19-20

E. We know from other texts that that which is born in us, the new man, is holy, blameless, created in righteousness and true holiness, without sin and unable to sin, spiritual, understands the "things of God" (open communication with Him) in the power of the Spirit, without condemnation, pleasing to God, subject to the law of God, born of God and operates under a new and different law …Eph 4:20-24; Col 3:9-1; 1 Cor 2:10-16; 1 John 3:9; Rom 8:1-13

F. We know that while we are at home in this tent we still are being changed into the image of Christ …2 Cor 3:18 …this should bring great and unspeakable joy into our lives, …taking the long range view of the glory that awaits after the suffering on earth. But the joy is NOW.

II. The New Body
A. This tent will be completely changed …Phil 3:21

B. Our appearance, now unknown, will be "like Jesus" …1 John 3:2,3…in the resurrection.

C. This change is called our redemption, the adoption and will take place at the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ for us …Rom 8:23; Phil 3:20-21; 1 Thess 4:13-18; This event is called the rapture or the taking up (caught up…Latin: rapturo, or rapture).

D. This change is the swallowing up of our mortality into immortality …1 Cor 15:51-58

E. This change delivers us from the wrath which is to come in 1 Thess 1:10 and is one of the greatest of hopes that we have. At Edgemont Bible Church we believe this wrath to come is the Tribulation period which we hold is yet a future event since nothing like it has occurred on earth yet. Consequently, we call our position the pre-trib rapture position.

F. It is in this new body that we, the living, born-again people will be judged at the judgment seat of Christ for our willing submission to the Spirit’s new man in us or our disobedience while we were in the current bodies …Rom 14:4-13; 1 Cor 3:9-23;
2Cor 5:10

G. It is in this new body that we shall forever be with the Lord

H. The characteristics of this new body are not totally clear…1 John 3:2…but there are some things which can be known:
Our ability to know things is multiplied greatly to the point of knowing as we are known by God …1 Cor 13:12
Our cognitive skills are raised to the point that we will know people whom we have never met. Ex. The 3 disciples "knew" Moses and Elijah in the transfiguation.
It is incorruptible, glorious (shares the glory of Jesus …Col 3:4), powerful, spiritual yet visible and touchable, it apparently is not flesh and blood. …1 Cor 15:42-50

Rejoice, and again I say rejoice, for this is the Day that the Lord hath made!

America-on the Spiraling Downward Path, Part 8

ON GOVERNMENT
"Evil acts can be given an aura of moral legitimacy by noble-sounding socialistic expressions such as spreading the wealth, income redistribution or caring for the less fortunate. Let's think about socialism. Imagine there's an elderly widow down the street from you. She has neither the strength to mow her lawn nor enough money to hire someone to do it. Here's my question to you that I'm almost afraid for the answer: Would you support a government mandate that forces one of your neighbors to mow the lady's lawn each week? If he failed to follow the government orders, would you approve of some kind of punishment ranging from house arrest and fines to imprisonment? I'm hoping that the average American would condemn such a government mandate because it would be a form of slavery, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another. Would there be the same condemnation if instead of the government forcing your neighbor to physically mow the widow's lawn, the government forced him to give the lady $40 of his weekly earnings? That way the widow could hire someone to mow her lawn. I'd say that there is little difference between the mandates. While the mandate's mechanism differs, it is nonetheless the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another. Probably most Americans would have a clearer conscience if all the neighbors were forced to put money in a government pot and a government agency would send the widow a weekly sum of $40 to hire someone to mow her lawn. This mechanism makes the particular victim invisible but it still boils down to one person being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another. Putting the money into a government pot makes palatable acts that would otherwise be deemed morally offensive. This is why socialism is evil. It employs evil means, coercion or taking the property of one person, to accomplish good ends, helping one's fellow man." --George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams

LIBERTY...copied from the PatriotPost newsletter
"Congratulations, tolerance mau-mauers: Your shakedown of a Christian-targeted dating website worked. Homosexuals will no longer be denied the inalienable 'right' to hook up with same-sex partners on eHarmony. What a landmark triumph for social progress, eh? New Jersey plaintiff Eric McKinley can now crown himself the new Rosa Parks -- heroically breaking down inhumane barriers to Internet matchmaking by forcing a law-abiding private company to provide services it was never created to provide. 'Men seeking men' has now been enshrined with 'I have a dream' as a civil rights rallying cry of the 21st century. Bully for you, Mr. McKinley. You bully. Neil Warren, eHarmony's founder, is a gentle, grandfatherly businessman who launched his popular dating site to support heterosexual marriage. A 'Focus on the Family' author with a divinity degree, Warren encourages healthy, lasting unions between men and women of all faiths, mixed faiths or no faith at all. Don't like what eHarmony sells? Go somewhere else. There are thousands upon thousands of dating sites on the Internet that cater to gays, lesbians, Jews, Muslims, Trekkies, runners, you name it. No matter. In the name of tolerance, McKinley refused to tolerate eHarmony's right to operate a lawful business that didn't give him what he wanted. He filed a discrimination complaint against eHarmony with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights in 2005. To be clear: eHarmony never, ever refused to do business with anyone. The company broke no laws. Their great 'sin' was not providing a politically correct service that a publicity-seeking gay plaintiff demanded they provide."
--columnist Michelle Malkin